The Power of Persistence: Sales, Service, and Success

Join Leighann Lovely as she hosts Steve Wallace, CEO of Maverick app, on this episode of the Love Your Sales Podcast. They dive into the struggles and triumphs of sales, from missed opportunities to the importance of hard work and exceptional service. Steve shares his journey from bartender to business leader, emphasizing the value of putting in the effort and the human element in sales. They also discuss the significance of creating meaningful customer experiences and the pitfalls of relying too heavily on automation without human input. Whether you're a seasoned sales professional or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights into building lasting sales relationships and driving business growth. Don't miss Steve's advice on leveraging sales automation and setting up your business for success right from the start.

Contact Steve

Email - steve@maverickapp.io

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiefsalesnerd/

Website - https://maverickapp.io/

 

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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined today by Steve Wallace. Steve is the CEO of Maverick app. Steve's journey from humble beginnings as a bartender to becoming a trailblazing force in the world of business and sales is a true testament to his hustle and relentless drive. I love that behind the bar. Steve learned the importance of hard work and exceptional service, adopting the mantra.

[00:02:00] If there's time to learn, there's time to clean. The mindset always pushing to go faster, serve better, and never stop improving has fueled his success in the business world. Today, Steve is helping companies grow by leveraging his unique experience and insight into sales, leadership, and customer relationships.

And I have to say, I absolutely love, the mantra. I love, just the tenacity, you know, that's the type of personality that truly creates a really well rounded and just self driven human. So Steve, I'm so thrilled to have you here.

Steve Wallace: I'm glad to be here. We're overdue. This is gonna be fun. Thank you.

Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: So tell me a little bit about, you know, your business

Steve Wallace: Yeah. Where do I start? Right. Uh, as a child or a little bit later on, right. And what more of my professional journey, right? Um, I think the best place to [00:03:00] start is, is the why I was never particularly well taught in sales and that's now my why.

So everything that I now speak about that I teach about I've experienced. And, and had the pain of experiencing it, not in like a visceral paper cut or type of way, but the emotional pain attached to, to not being great at sales. I was never taught sales, never had great leadership until later on in my sales career.

I never had the money for a sales coach. Matter of fact, when I first started, it was as an insurance agent and I did okay. I hit. Certain records and won some awards in that world. That doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. And fast forward, I actually got in my car repossessed and went into some really difficult financial and emotionally distressing times.[00:04:00]

My brain wasn't ready and I wasn't ready to have remarkable accountability in my, my sales process and my business ownership. And it took some time for me to pick myself up by my bootstraps and diagnose what went wrong. I don't think you can ever have a real conversation about how to improve unless you identify what went wrong and attach it.

To yourself or to something, somewhere you cannot improve unless you, I, unless you anchor yourself in some reality. And I had that come to Jesus moment, call it. And I said, Oh, wow. Like I could have done a lot better along the way. Sure. I made some money, but I could have done a lot better. And once I identified what those betters were, what those factors were, then I could fix them.

Marker

Steve Wallace: And what that involved was study of sales that involved putting myself in uncomfortable positions, learning how to cold call, learning how to network. I I'm a big subscriber to giving other people what they want as often as possible, even if it's [00:05:00] not something that I can personally financially or professionally benefit from just finding a prospects, common enemy.

And helping them attack that enemy. So to speak, I'm a big fan of that. Even if it means that I don't get to work with them right away. Anyway, I learned all these lessons on my own over time. And as you can imagine, Leighann, like that doesn't, that involves quite a bit of discomfort and pain. And fast forward to today where I, I head up Maverick app.

The mantra time to lean, if there's time to lean, there's time to clean is still applicable today. If there's time to, to dilly dally, there's actually time to do something that of significance. Maverick app is a tool that, that in my eyes fits that mantra perfectly because one of our internal core values is do the work.

There's no such thing as a [00:06:00] sales. Automation tool or no such thing as a silver bullet sales automation tool. You still have to make it work for you. So anytime somebody says to me, I don't know if, if I'm an automation prospect, I don't know if I'm the right fit for this. They may or may not be right, but I can tell you right away that unless you're willing to put the effort in to make something work, it won't work for you.

So hopefully that's a good intro for, for you and your audience.

Leighann Lovely: That's perfect. You said so many things that truly like hit with it. I was like, Oh, I want to interrupt and like, but no, no, no, no, no, no. And, and so there's a couple of, you know, putting in the work, obviously , you know, I'm a big, big, huge proponent of AI tools, but those tools only.

Work for you. If you put in the work up front one to set them up and then chew on the back end that you're utilizing them the proper way, you know, people are like, Oh, it's going to take [00:07:00] over the world. It's going to do everything for you. Well, no, it's not. Um, you still have to. There's still the human element that will never go away.

Like, yeah, okay, I can go online, Microsoft, for instance, I can go online and buy my Microsoft products and all this stuff, and now they're like, oh, and we do it for you. Okay, great. And I'm going through this right now, which is why I use this example. They, you know, I'm every two seconds I'm getting an email and they're like, you have to do this now.

Okay, great. Now they're going to do this portion of it. Now you have to do this. There's always something that a human is still responsible for doing. We cannot possibly make it all automated. Like right. There's a human element to it. Um, the other thing the mantra, If there's time to lean, there's time to clean.

I, I absolutely love this because I, I talk about with the people that I work with that revenue generating tasks, [00:08:00] like people are like, well, I've got, I've got a lot of extra time on my hands. I'm going to just do no, no, no, no. We've gotten so used to like, Oh, I've got some extra time. I'm going to work on some whatever task.

And I think to myself, you need to work on a revenue generating task and wipe away all of this junk that we think is important, that we fill our time with,

Steve Wallace: right?

Leighann Lovely: And make that revenue generating activity. And people think , oh, I'm busy. I'm really busy. I don't have, no, busy does not create, like, busy is not activity.

 And, and I, there's somebody in my network who says this all the time. They're like, if somebody comes up and you ask them like, oh, how was your day? Oh, God, it was so busy. Well, okay, great. That could mean a million and ten things. But if somebody comes up and they say, I [00:09:00] was very. I, like, I had a ton of activity going on, I was very intentional, I got a lot done.

I'm like, oh, okay, wow, it sounds like that was a really powerful day. And if you eliminate the busy work, all of the sudden you're like, wow, I'm really hyper focused in on what is important. Versus what is not important, especially in sales, half the crap that we do in sales. We're like, Oh, this is really important.

Not, not really.

Steve Wallace: Not as important as you think,

Leighann Lovely: right? Spending a half an hour researching somebody's website just so that you can make one phone call and then you're never going to get in

touch

with them.

Steve Wallace: It's like, it's like you're looking for the perfect ammunition to make the perfect call and you warm yourself up.

to the idea of making that outreach. Maybe it's a cold call. Maybe it's not. But you're trying to look for just enough sales intel to make the [00:10:00] perfect outreach to Lee and for example, and I finally do it and I pick up the phone and I call you and nobody answers. It's like, I just wasted so much time doing nothing like just.

Pick up the phone.

Leighann Lovely: What, what are you going to find on their website that's going to make them say yes versus just picking up the phone and

it calling

them

Steve Wallace: right. Right. And asking questions and finding a pain and trying to solve that problem for

Leighann Lovely: right. And you could spend a half an hour researching one person to call them and have them go.

Oh, yeah, that used to be my responsibility. That's just been delegated to so and so.

Steve Wallace: Right. Oh, unbelievable. Yeah. So,

Leighann Lovely: and I fight this battle all the time with, with clients, with , my call center of stop doing that. Just call them.

Steve Wallace: Right.

Leighann Lovely: And if you get ahold of them, great. Have a really quick conversation.

Hey, Steve. Um, I'm Leighann Lovely calling from Love Your Sales. I just, I [00:11:00] thought I would reach out to you really quickly and see if you're the person responsible for, for, you know, making decisions on buying, like, and you could really quick. Yeah, that's not me, but, uh, Sue in purchasing Sue. Okay, great.

Excellent.

Steve Wallace: Click. Yeah. Right. Right. It's, this connects in my mind, this connects to it, to a related topic if it's okay, Leighann. Yeah. Which is, we're talking about doing the work and I'm sure you've met with lots of business owners and salespeople who say they do it. They say they're busy. They're doing the work.

And I was so busy today. Well, was it with revenue generated activity? Yes. Yes, it was. It was Steve. Oh, great. Uh, tell me about, about what you're at, what you have to do now, since you've got all this busy work and did you did all these things, [00:12:00] tell me what, what came out of that and that's a conversation I had with a rep.

And I, I asked what, what came out of your daily activity and I know whether or not they're actually doing it based on what their responses, because if, if a rep says to me, we're a salesperson and business owner, whoever I'm speaking with, if they say to me, I have 10 followup emails to send, I have to make sure I send three calendar invitations and I have to do this, this, and this, I'm like, that means you spoke to people and regardless of whether or not you handled their, The timing isn't good or send me an email or those are objections.

That's a different conversation. We can talk about that. But if you spoke to people, you're going to have real actions to take after your busy work. But if you say I have to create this sequence that does this and connects to that platform, and then I have to buy the automation. I'm like, Nope, you're just.

Just you're working on fluff and it's [00:13:00] sometimes it's necessary, but, but that's a good way for me to tell if someone's actually doing the work,

Leighann Lovely: right? If you have actionable items after that are real actionable items versus, Oh, well I need to put in my follow up calls, um, , and I need to put in,

okay,

Steve Wallace: right. And, yeah, to who, why, what will you say, right?

Leighann Lovely: What else? Are we telling more? Right, because that, that's, that's something that you do right when you call them to ask. If you're left a voicemail to ask, you do that, okay, move on to the next., and I always talk, you know, activity creates activity.

Steve Wallace: Yeah. Oh, here we go. Let's go.

Leighann Lovely: , I always get this question, how many appointments are you going to schedule for me? in a [00:14:00] week. How many appointments are you going to schedule for me in a month? And I'm like, and people like to ask me that when, before they even tell me what their business is.

And I'm like, well, I don't know. Are, do you, do you sell widgets or are you a, you know, SaaS solution that, you know, is a six month to a year, Closing process, because those are two totally different, like if you sell candy, I could probably, you know, get a whole ton of appointments, your specialty popcorn, you know, depending on the time of year, I could probably get a lot of people interested really, really, really quickly.

But if you sell something that's like, you know, Hey, it's 50, 000 per whatever it's going to. And so my answer is, I will show you the activity that we are doing for you. And that activity will create more activity, will create more activity, and then [00:15:00] everything is going to fall in place, and you're going to go, Holy crap, look at all of this activity, and look at all of these appointments that are coming with it.

Right. But I, I love, I, I just love when people are like, well, exactly how many? Are you going to give me five appointments a week? Are you going to give me 10 appointments a week? And I'm like,

Steve Wallace: that's always a really, I tread on those grounds carefully because I want to know why they're worried about how many meetings I'm going to, I'm going to set for them or how much my platform Maverick Apple set for them.

If they themselves are not setting meetings for themselves. So if they're setting one a week and they want a platform to set four or five a week, okay, I mean, you can make an argument that an automation done well would, is that's the whole point of scaling is you're bringing on an automation to scale your efforts, right?

If you're setting one, then you want an automation to do five fine, but tell me why, tell me what the ideal outcome is, [00:16:00] how long did it take you to set? And when does it close? Do you care when it closes? Right? That's a big one, because if you tell me you set one per week but it closes in 18 months, then my, my scope of work just completely changed.

Leighann Lovely: Right.

Steve Wallace: I have to understand the why behind You asking for how many meetings I'll set for you, right? So, yeah, it's, it's very, it gets convoluted and muddy quickly. And I don't even think, I don't think people even understand these things. They haven't had a chance to actually look at their sales process and decide for themselves, what could I be fixing before I even automate it?

Leighann Lovely: Right. Well, and that's the other thing too, is that people, you know, I'll ask them, well, how many appointments does it take for you to. Right.

Steve Wallace: Yeah.

Leighann Lovely: And then they'll go, well, you know, I, you [00:17:00] know, I have to have 20 appointments to have two closes and I'm like, okay, wait, wait, wait, okay, why? Why does it take 20 appointments for one or two closes?

Steve Wallace: Right.

Leighann Lovely: Are you selling a monster product that's at You know, 100, 000 is the buy in 1, 000 and you're only closing that because then we have to look at us and go, what are we doing at the closing that we're not having a higher success rate? And do we really need 20 appointments for, that close? Do we need to, you know, and that's another thing that all of a sudden it's like, okay, wait, so you're expecting me to set 20 for one or two closes.

Maybe we need to actually look at ourselves in the closing process.

Steve Wallace: Right.

Leighann Lovely: This was my problem early on as a salesperson. You said, you know, you did like, I could schedule and schedule and schedule [00:18:00] and schedule appointments. And then I would show up and I would just word vomit and be like, blah.

Steve Wallace: Absolutely. I was a world class opener, world class opener and word vomit. Yeah,

Leighann Lovely: same with me. I could schedule. I could schedule appointments because I was one of those people that could get on the phone and get that person to be like, yeah, I'd love to meet you. And then I would walk in the door and I would fall apart.

So early on in my sales career, I had to really sit down and go. What is the problem? What issue am I having when I walk in the door and they meet me? One, I was, I was so green. And two, I also, I also was really arguing with the proposal that we were required to present that was like 20 pages long. Ha, ha, ha, ha,

Steve Wallace: ha, ha.

That doesn't do you any favors. I swear, some organizations just don't understand what it takes for a [00:19:00] salesperson to sell and the process they implement is actually hurting their sales.

Leighann Lovely: Right. I mean, this, it was like a spiral bound proposal that we had to present to every, no, this was many, many years ago.

I mean, there were times where I'd look up and the people in the rooms, eyes were like pulling into the back of their head. And I'm like, this isn't working.

Marker

Steve Wallace: Well, there are still industries that. Put a significant amount of roadblocks between their salespeople and their buyer, their end user, or their client.

Like financial services is one, uh, less so much financial advisors because they tend to give advice there on the spot, but property and casualty insurance, insurance agents, how often do you, have you heard the phrase? Send me a quote,

Leighann Lovely: right?

Steve Wallace: It's like, well, no, nope. Don't do that anymore. Don't send quotes.

Right. Because that will give your prospect on the other end of the email, the opportunity to say, no, not for me. [00:20:00]

Leighann Lovely: Correct.

Steve Wallace: Too expensive. Moving on.

Leighann Lovely: And in my business, and I'm going to guess in yours, that it's not just as simple as like, Oh, here's what I do. Just send me, just send me a quote. In my business.

I can't. Right. I have to know. What you do, it's, there's no standard. I don't have a standard quote. I mean, I have standardized pricing for different things, but there is no like. We don't offer a, just one solution fits all

Steve Wallace: right. We have, we're a software, so we do have to have subscription levels that are public facing.

Matter of fact, I can't stand it when a really simple product like your, your, yours is, is not complex, but it's, it's consultative. So it makes sense why you wouldn't have prices on a website. We have to, but. Um, the high end, you look at our website [00:21:00] very soon and it's going to say, talk to sales for our highest subscription, because it's constant data, right?

We're going to patchwork different solutions and people together to fit the needs of our target market. And if we're not doing that, then it's a huge opportunity wasted where it could be underselling ourselves, overselling ourselves. Overselling is a huge problem because people will walk in with certain expectations.

And if they believe that they were oversold and then under, I mean, underperformed, then they're going to cancel. We don't want that. If we under sell and overperform, then perhaps we undercharged, right? So talk to sales. That's it. Just talk to the leadership,

Leighann Lovely: right? And that's, you know, and again, you know, standard, we have standardized pricing that not everybody needs the same thing.

Right. We offer marketing campaigns that somebody can go to MailChimp and do. [00:22:00] And so if somebody is already using MailChimp or one of those mail services out there and they come and they say, okay, well we need this, but we don't need this, but we don't need it. Well, it's like, well, I'm just going to pull that pricing out of there and be like, okay, now this is your standardized pricing without that service included.

But if they were to go to my website and they were to see like base the standardized, like they're going to go, well, I already have that. I don't need it. I'm not going to buy this.

Steve Wallace: Right. It's like. No perceived value.

Leighann Lovely: Correct. So, and then you're right, when it's the alt, like the, hey, we want everything.

It's like, okay, you need to call, talk to sales because now we're actually putting together your complete strategic plan. So let's, we, , we. Got off on a tangent here.

Steve Wallace: So

Leighann Lovely: let's talk about, again, I kind of want to, I want to dive a little bit more into your journey because again, [00:23:00] we as salespeople, I think that we, we're not born sales.

Okay. Let me refer. We are born as salespeople. We we're, we're negotiating, but we lose those. And you're not born a top performing salesperson. And just until recently, there aren't colleges who are training. Or teaching sales skills. And have you heard this now? Actual colleges are jumping on board. I'm so excited.

Entrepreneurship

Steve Wallace: sales. These are now, these are now elect elected. Uh, is that the phrase? Uh, these are now programs and courses you can now elect to take for sure. Or major in.

Leighann Lovely: I know. Isn't that amazing? Right?

Steve Wallace: Yeah. So I wish it was around when I was younger.

Leighann Lovely: And, and like you, I wasn't ready. When I wanted to, , start my career, I, I knew I would fail if I tried to become a salesperson.

Um, so I, I had another career before I even went into sales. I, I wasn't [00:24:00] emotionally intelligent enough. I think that was my issue. , I just, I was not. So let's talk about, you know, you went to college. What did you do and how did you start to really hone in on those sales skills?

Steve Wallace: So it's a long answer.

I'll try to keep it shorter.

Marker

Steve Wallace: I think it goes all the way back to the beginning of me working with other people. It was always a sale. Sales isn't just selling something, right? If you look up the definition of sales, they're going to the definition will be something like the exchange of goods for, for other goods, right?

Like blah, blah, blah. No, no, no. I'm talking about persuasion, right? So sales is effectively. Persuasion and painting a picture for people. And I've always been doing that. So I worked in retail in the electronics department and, and [00:25:00] people would come on in and they'd ask what kind of DVD player they should buy.

And I, I would, I wasn't compensated to sell more or less. It was just a regular hourly job, but I found myself. Having conversations with these people and explaining why they should do this one and not that one, right? Which one's going to make them happier. So that's just one example. And then the next one that really pops out is behind the bar.

This is where it really started to hit home. Like, wait a second. Like I'm running my own little micro business here. I have a W2 paycheck, but that doesn't tell the whole story, especially on the shifts when I was alone. So. This really started to sink in on Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights were, were, was the dead shift.

Nobody wanted to do anything. There was Monday night football. People would come on in on Mondays, not Tuesdays. There was thirsty Thursday. They'd come in on Thursday, not Tuesdays. [00:26:00] And so I looked at it as an opportunity to make my own money. If I had 10 bar guests, I'd make a hundred bucks easy, right? So I'm like, okay, this is not so bad.

I can, I can do this. And. It started to sink in that my job when I was alone was every penny. Every tip I made was mine to keep not splitting it with anybody that I would work my butt off and that I would learn to try new things with people to increase their bill. So somebody coming in for the first time, I'm going to give them the home runs.

Hey, these plates, these drinks make everybody happy. But Leighann, the next time you come in, since you liked this one, you should try this one. And I'm pointing them to a new menu item that's four or 5 more expensive. You love this one, this one will blow you away, but you gotta come visit me next Tuesday.

And I did that every single week to the point where Tuesday nights became a thousand dollar night for me, where I had eight tables around the bar with two to four seats, each a 28 person bar, every one of them [00:27:00] full and service bar, which for those of you. listening in who haven't don't know this before.

This is the bartender who makes drinks for the rest of the restaurant. So I was sweating bullets, but it all started with the idea that I was running my own little miniature business and no one was going to take accountability over that shift more than me. And so when they started to notice how busy I was, they asked me, they didn't ask me, they said, we're going to put a second bartender on.

And I'm like, no, you're not. I worked my butt off for this. I know every single person around this bar. And as a matter of fact, if you were to go ask them, if they're waiting a little extra time , to see me, they would all say yes. And that they don't care. Right. So they don't mind waiting a little extra for the value that I brought to the table.

Right. And that was a lesson right there, right? Like people are willing go to a thing about a restaurant. You think about a few different things. [00:28:00] The quality of the service, the quality of the food and the drink and how quickly it meets your schedule. I, at that point, it was impossible for me to deliver on all three, but nobody cared.

Leighann Lovely: And to your point, to your point, there have been places that I have over, you know, obviously when I was younger. There are places that I specifically go because of the wait staff, because of the bartender, because of now in my age, because of the owner, like, Oh, I know, I know the owner of this restaurant. I, I love the quality of his food.

Every time I go in, he will walk over or she will walk over and say, Hey, welcome in again. That is. You were literally becoming an entrepreneur right then and there. You just weren't the owner of it. You became an entrepreneur right there,

Steve Wallace: right?

Leighann Lovely: And that's, and people, when you [00:29:00] sit down at a restaurant and I used to think it was so cool when I was younger, my dad would go, we would go into a restaurant and The owner would come walking over and be like, Hey, how are you?

I do not, you know, and I was like, Oh my God, my parents must be celebrities. The, the owner of the restaurant knows them. And it, and it makes the, it makes the patron feel important, right? And when they feel important and seen, they are willing to lay down that much more. Of a tip,

Steve Wallace: right?

Leighann Lovely: They're like, oh yeah, I don't mind putting an extra $10 on top of the normal tip because all of a sudden they feel important.

Steve Wallace: Right? All people, all that's all people want, they wanna be seen. They want to feel important. , of course it has. Yes. The quality of the food. The, the quality of the drink. It comes down to how did [00:30:00] you make somebody feel in that moment?

Right. People will, and said differently, doubling down on your point, Leighann.

Steve Wallace: People will go to a restaurant with bad food and drinks for great service. They'll go back again and again and again. They won't do it the other way around.

Leighann Lovely: Nope.

Steve Wallace: Won't. No.

Leighann Lovely: You can have the best food in the world and if you have horrible service, they won't go back. Game over. Yep. Yep. Game over.

Steve Wallace: Yep.

Leighann Lovely: No, absolutely.

That I, and I have been to some restaurants where it's like, can we afford to, can we afford to sit in this restaurant? The food was so good, but the servers were, it was, it was horrible. And I'm like, I'm here, never coming here again. Like, right. Especially when you're paying that much, you're like, I came here to pay for an experience

Steve Wallace: Yep.

Leighann Lovely: And the experience. was so disappointing. I will never come here again.

Steve Wallace: Right? I mean, the [00:31:00] parallels between restaurants and entrepreneurship and sales are remarkable, right? The, the, the restaurants, especially like Michelin star restaurants, they've got something figured out that a lot of entrepreneurs and salespeople haven't figured out and you nailed it.

It's the experience, right? Look Michelin star plate. They're miniscule, like it's like one eighth of one tiny, you know, octopus leg with like some congealed fat, some other sauce, like daint. It looks like a Picasso painting. It's like, it's beautiful and you're not full. Right. And it costs you 100. Right. But what else happened?

Right. They personally escorted you to the table. They held the chair for you that the bathroom smelled incredible. Uh, the, the towels in the bathroom were actual cloth and disposable. Right. It's like this, they're creating this whole unique experience that makes you feel what wealthy scene, rich, special, whatever the [00:32:00] case may be.

And you draw these parallels over to entrepreneurship and sales. Why would we want to treat our prospects any differently?

Leighann Lovely: Correct.

Steve Wallace: Right.

Leighann Lovely: Everybody it's, it is the human condition. It is absolutely the human condition. People just want to be heard and seen. And they want you to not only hear and see, but when they're making a purchase, and, and I'll say, I'll say as small as that purchase is to as big as that purchase is, they want to make sure that you understand them.

If

I'm going and buying a Toyota versus if I'm going and buying a Mercedes. Now, obviously, I'm going to say, yeah, if I'm buying a Mercedes, I'm probably in a different tax bracket.

Steve Wallace: Yeah, money is different for you than for [00:33:00] somebody else. Correct.

Leighann Lovely: But, That doesn't mean that the person going and buying that Toyota doesn't want to be heard and seen.

It doesn't change the way that they want to feel that, you know, that even if it's a 16 year old kid, when they walk in there, they're like, Oh my God, I'm so excited. You don't want to write that kid. Like. You want to treat that kid like amazing. They're going to remember that experience and be like, Oh my God, this was so exciting.

And

Steve Wallace: right. Oh yeah.

Leighann Lovely: And if you, if you make that kid feel special, that parent is going to be like, okay, we'll come back to this place.

Steve Wallace: Right. Right. And that's just a car. Let's call it what it is. Cars are a transaction.

Leighann Lovely: Correct.

Steve Wallace: I typically don't buy from anybody I don't have a relationship with, so that even applies to the people I buy a car from.

That said, most people view a car as a transaction. They don't have this deep relationship with the person who sold them a [00:34:00] car. But extrapolate that out if it, if, if making someone feel special about a car, uh, typically a transactional purchase is so important. Extrapolate that across and into transactions that require a relationship and require you to understand how, how they feel and making them feel special.

Leighann Lovely: Right. Oh, I completely and totally agree. And recurring purchases.

Steve Wallace: Absolutely. Oh yeah.

Leighann Lovely: I mean, For a business owner, for instance. And I go to this one all of the time, all the time, your accountant, accountants have a tendency to not necessarily be warm and fuzzy and like, hold your hand.

They pretty much are like, Hey, send me your information. I'll look it over and I will do your books. And then all of a sudden you feel like they've ghosted you and you're like, okay, well, what happened to the accountant that I just sent my information to? And then like three weeks later, they're like, okay, all your books are done.

And you're like, this is

Steve Wallace: so true. [00:35:00]

Leighann Lovely: I thought you like completely ghosted me. I, I'm glad that you're still up because I was afraid that I was going to have to get a new one of you because you just disappeared. They're not exactly the warm and fuzzy make you feel happy. Usually they just grab your information and disappear.

Steve Wallace: The work. Yeah. Yeah.

But, but they're necessary.

It's funny because it's such a good example. Like what you just described is, is so true, right?

Leighann Lovely: I'm an entrepreneur. I've been through this before.

Steve Wallace: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I

Leighann Lovely: always feel just think if all of the sudden they were like, they checked in with you all of the time.

Think about how good that would make you feel like, Oh my God, my accountant is checking in with me to make sure I'm, I'm happy. Like I would, I would probably recommend that accountants to everybody. I know.

Steve Wallace: Yeah. Simply just a message like, hey, hey, LeeAnne, haven't forgotten about you, send, you know what I mean?

Like,

oh, it's like, [00:36:00] oh, thank you, accountant. I know. so

Leighann Lovely: much. I'm so glad that you're still there and you haven't ghosted me. I thought I did something wrong.

Steve Wallace: Oh, that's amazing.

Leighann Lovely: I know. It's, I know. I, I love my accountants. I absolutely love her, but, and she always responds immediately, but I'm one of those people who are like kind of a micromanager when it comes to that stuff. Like, okay, what's, what's happening? Like, are you working on stuff? And she's like, Oh, you mean you've poured

Steve Wallace: your, you mean you've poured everything into growing a business and now you just want to know the numbers make sense.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Sounds right.

Leighann Lovely: Right. But there are other systems out there too, that like, is there, is there a customer service on the other end of this? Like how do you stay in business? You're not even responding to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that as a small business owner, when my clients email me, I'm like, okay, got to email them.

Got to make sure they're [00:37:00] happy. It's, it's not even a question.

Steve Wallace: Right.

Leighann Lovely: , because it all comes down to, do they feel taken care of?

Steve Wallace: Right. Right. That's all that matters.

Leighann Lovely: Right. Sometimes I wish I, you know, had the accountant's ability to just do

Steve Wallace: the Disconnect.

Leighann Lovely: Just, okay, I'll get back to you in three weeks.

It'll be taken care of.

Steve Wallace: I agree. I agree. I wish I had that too. I care too much. Right? But

Leighann Lovely: Well, and they have, they have something that all of us don't. They have the ability to do Numbers. And, and again, I'm just not, that is not my personality. I am a through and through sales minded person. So I'm lost. If I didn't have an accountant, I would go, I would, I would be lost.

Sorry. This has been an amazing conversation and it's gotten away from me. We are coming to time. Steve, it is your opportunity to do your, your, [00:38:00] your shameless 30 seconds.

Steve Wallace: Cool. Okay. Let's do it. I, uh, for anybody listening,

Marker

Steve Wallace: I would love for you to put yourself in the first day of your business without referral partners, without phone numbers, without cash, nothing.

And think to yourself, how am I going to grow this business without those? And the answer is it's going to be really hard and really time consuming. Well, it turns out there's a platform that automates the stuff that you need to do in order to grow your business called Maverick app. We automate prospecting.

We automate cold email outreach, and we automate some LinkedIn work as well. And we can solve a lot of the problems that you have in growing your business without asking you to learn a whole new skill set and spending a whole bunch of time. If we can't set at least 10 new meetings a month for you, we'll give you your money back.

Leighann Lovely: Awesome. Thank you so much, Steve. This has been an amazing conversation. Um, where can people reach out to you if they are interested in learning more [00:39:00] about you and what you do?

Steve Wallace: Yeah. So I'm, I'm all over LinkedIn. That's the best way to reach me, Steve Wallace. And I think I just changed the, the, the name after the hyphen.

So I forget what it is now, but look up Steve Wallace on LinkedIn Maverick app. You can also reach me at Steve at Maverick app dot B I Z those are the two best ways to reach me.

Leighann Lovely: Awesome. And that information will be in the show notes. So if somebody wants to reach out to Steve, you can also check the show notes.

But again, Steve, thank you so much. This has been an awesome conversation.

Steve Wallace: Yeah, thanks, Leighann. We can always chum it up. I think this is great.